Birth Story: Allison

Dearest Little Ones-

Here is the story of your amazing birth. 🙂

Like I mentioned before, we had to check into the hospital at 9pm on Wednesday night, May 16th. When we arrived we didn’t have to wait very long in the reception area because we were already preregistered. They took us back to our room and got mommy into a big ugly hospital gown. Before I laid down in the bed to get hooked up to the IV and monitors I had daddy snap one more picture of my big belly, and whoa was I big!!

Daddy and I made a couple of phone calls to let your grandparents know where we were and that we were all settled in. After that we just sat and chit chatted for a while about how excited we were and speculated one last time about what you would look like and if you were boys or girls or one of each. When I went to sleep I was 2-3cm dilated and 80% effaced. I had 2 doses of Cytotec (a drug to help move labor along), 1 at around 10pm and 1 at 2am Thursday morning. When I woke up Thursday morning I was amazed that I had slept so well (thank you Ambien)! I was so excited and super scared! It wasn’t long after I woke up that your grandma arrived to sit with us. Not too much longer after that, around 7:45am, Dr. Pohl came in to break my water. He checked me and said I was pretty much 100% effaced and 4-5cm dilated. Yay!! He broke my water and left to go perform a procedure in day surgery. When he broke my water I felt IMMEDIATE relief from all the shortness of breath I’d had for so many months, and he just broke baby A’s water! As he broke my water he told me that there was meconium in the fluid and said “glad we didn’t decide to wait until next week.” Basically that means that baby A wasn’t able to wait until after birth to go potty (#2) and went in their amniotic fluid. This can be very dangerous and can make a baby very sick. Mommy and daddy were immediately so relieved that we decided not to wait another week to bring you into the world. If we had waited baby A could’ve been born very sick…or worse.

Mommy almost immediately started having strong contractions about 2 minutes apart. I just closed my eyes, tried to get in as comfortable a position as I could find and breathe with them. It was so hard to do! Daddy and grandma were there and they were both great at reminding me to breathe and stay calm. At some point Dr. Pohl came back in to check on me, but I don’t know what time it was. He just basically poked his head in and said he’d check back in later. I was having a pretty big contraction so I hardly remember him being there at all. At around 9:15am I asked my nurse to check me because the contractions were right on top of each other and they were BAD. Well, she checked me and I had not progressed at ALL. Well, I’m not proud, but I broke down at that point and asked for the consent for the epidural. Little did I know that I had waited too long. No drugs for me!! Well, in this time, which was probably about 5 minutes my contractions didn’t stop at all and I started feeling the urge to push. The pain was something that I can not describe. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life and it was so very, very hard to stay calm. As a matter of fact, I failed at that and I was howling in pain. Asking for the cervix check completely destroyed my focus (and the dumb thing was that I knew better!!). Anyway, when I said I felt like I needed to push the nurse told me she wanted to check me again. She checked me and just looked at her aide and said “get Dr. Pohl on the phone now.” I had dilated from 4-5cm to almost 10cm in about 15 minutes. I was begging to push and they were begging me to wait for the doctor. By the time Dr. Pohl walked in Baby A was already very low in the birth canal and close to crowning. He immediately sat down and started working on massaging my perineum with oil and warm towels.The contractions were still right on top of each other, literally and I was pushing with each contraction. The pain was amazing. It was primal and that’s really the only word I can think of to describe it. I didn’t even recognize the sounds that were coming out of my body. I, of course felt baby A’s head when it popped out, and after one more push baby A was out! It was 10:07am. I heard that amazing first cry and the next thing I heard was the sound of daddy’s voice telling me that our firstborn child was a son. Unfortunately, my uterine contractions were really slowing down and I desperately needed them to help me push out baby B. So, I literally got to hold you for about 2 minutes before they took you to do all of your well baby checkups with the NICU team.

I got busy pushing again, but my uterine contractions were, like I mentioned slowing rapidly. Also, another very discouraging thing that happened is that it labor moved into my back. Trying to push out baby B was pretty difficult work. My doctor went ahead and had them give me a dose of Pitocin to try and stimulate my uterus, but after several minutes it was obvious that baby B was going to need a little help. Although my labor was so very fast, it had still hit me like a ton of bricks. The whole theory of approaching child labor as a marathon was not at all helpful in my case. I definitely should’ve at least prepared for the contingency that could possibly turn into a sprint. OK, so bottom line is that I pushed and pushed with no real progress, and when my OB asked my permission for him to assist with the vacuum I said YES! 2 more pushes and lot of pain later, Mike told me that our stubborn little baby B was a little girl. It was 10:40am. You were born with a lot of mucous, but in no distress. Of course we had you looked over by the NICU folks, and you were just fine, but as it turns out you were born sunny side up. That’s what caused the back labor and all that additional time between your births.

While the doctor was stitching up my tear (1st degree only) you both attempted to nurse. Little boy Birdsong was much more successful than little girl Birdsong, but you’ve both shown great progress over the last few hours. You still just seem perfect to me in every way. Shortly after your birth the nurses moved us up to the mommy/baby floor and got us settled into our room. We just sat and looked at you both for the longest time and talked about names. We decided after some time that the names we had decided on months earlier suited you both perfectly, so we made it official. We named you Benjamin Michael and Emily Katherine Birdsong. Emmie Kate, when you were born you weighed 5 pounds and 13 ounces. Your hair is the color of mine and you have my mouth, but I really do think you both have daddy’s nose. Ben, you have daddy’s dark hair and darker skin tone for sure. You were 6 pounds and 4 ounces when you were born. It’s so amazing to look at you both and see such a mixture of mommy and daddy’s features. You even already have little individual personalities. Ben, you are very laid back and you like to sleep sprawled out with your arms above your head just like daddy, and Emmie Kate, you already a spoiled little princess. You seem a little high strung and mommy and daddy already suspect you will be giving us a run for our money! Right now you have a huge bruise on your head from the vacuum, and I know that your birth was a little more traumatic, so I admit I am coddling you a bit, but not by much. I held you both all night last night. I didn’t sleep a wink! All I could do was stare at you and marvel at how amazingly perfect you are and how unbelievably happy I am that you are finally here. You are the perfect little miracles I prayed for and as much as I loved you before you were here, it doesn’t hold a candle to how much I love you now that I have held you in my arms. I am the luckiest girl on earth.